The BBC have asked Xbox’s Phil Spencer why there was no mention of VR during the recent E3 presentation, as the Xbox One X had previously been linked to the technology.
“This show right here was about consoles, it’s about great games, that’s what is important to us,” said Phil. “But we are great believers in mixed reality, and mixed reality on the PC is something we are focused on, we are building first party games, and our mixed reality platform with our partners is continuing to be rolled out.”
You’ll note that Phil talks about mixed reality rather than virtual reality, as Hololens is AR rather than VR.
“Will Xbox ever be the place for VR gaming?” asked the BBC.
“I don’t get a lot of questions about console and mixed reality in the living room,” said Phil. “Their are issues with my TV being across the room, cables hanging, when I’m on my PC I am closer to my PC and that seems a more user friendly scenario today. But I will say we are all learning, the work that Sony is today is great, Oculus, HTC, all about learning what mixed reality can be and we’re just getting traction on the developer side.”
So in short, don’t hold you breath if you want VR on Xbox. It’s a little odd that they “don’t get many questions” about this sort of thing when they demoed Minecraft on Hololens in 2015 and it looked pretty awesome.
Source: BBC
bunimomike
Most people who game on consoles don’t want fuss, I reckon. VR is fuss. I really think it’s that simple.
Tuffcub
Is it a fuss? Not after it’s plugged in. I just shove my headset and off I go, its not like I have to faff about with anything, just take the headset off the shelf.
bunimomike
To you, maybe not, but to most I see it as a fuss. It’s also why 3D glasses were a “fuss”. Research was done over here and in Japan and the percentages were almost identical. The majority saw it as something they simply didn’t want to bother with and that it added to the fuss (read: unnecessary to them having a good time).
Tuffcub
Ah I see what you mean. Agreed.
aerobes
My main issue is cost of entry and limited support currently. I don’t expect the Sony presentation to feature a lot of VR either.
double-o-dave
Yep. Sounds lazy, but I pay more and buy most of my games digitally now as I can’t be bothered with the fuss of swapping discs.
The Lone Steven
Oh no. How terrible.
Severn2j
I love how he doesn’t seem to have heard of Virtual Reality and instead is only aware of “Mixed” reality..
I guess this means that Xbox One X isnt having support for the Oculus Rift after all.
Andrewww
My understanding is that ‘mixed’ is more advanced than ‘virtual’ in this case. VR is just an edge case of mixed reality, in which the component of actual reality is reduced to zero. But, I’m not an expert here.
And, of course, they also have to distinguish their stuff from the other players in the market.
Stefan L
Microsoft are bundling in Hololens and augmented reality with virtual reality here. He knows what VR is, it’s just they’ve decided that they want to use a broader terms when discussing it.
What’s been said elsewhere is that they’re waiting for wireless VR to be a thing, which fits in with Spencer saying to the Beeb that cables are alright when you’re at your computer, but make less sense when draped across your living room.
Andrewww
On the one hand it’s: ouch, one bullet point off their list, which Sony has.
On the other hand, it makes perfect sense, as that’s not the reason they’re behind Sony, and as it’s niche and not mass market, it’s not the best way to catch up.
Starman
Glad they ignored this fad for Xbox. It’s already clear VR has failed to gain enough sales to get major developers interested. No point forcing another useless device on us.
Severn2j
Pretty much all growth projections disagree with you.
The reason its not taken over the industry overnight is because its still in the early adopter phase. Developers are still experimenting with what mechanics work and what doesn’t. There isn’t even a standard method of moving yet. Nobody in their right mind would invest AAA money in a game that hasn’t been previously proven to work and hasn’t got a big enough install base to recoup the investment.
It took a long time to get from Space War to Destiny. Give it a couple of generations before you write it off.
Starman
This isn’t the first time VR has been attempted though. Not by a long way. It jase always failed and always will. Gamers just want a controller in their hands and a TV set in front of them.
TrumpyMx
1m PSVR owners say hi….
Starman
… as they await some triple A games for it.